1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a digital broadcast receiver unit, and in particular, relates to a digital broadcast receiver unit capable of receiving, in one stream, multiplex video signals formatted according to a plurality of differing scanning methods.
2. Description of Related Art
In digital transmission technology, in addition to video and audio signals, all kinds of information can be multiplexed and broadcast over one common carrier wave, i.e., multi-channel broadcasts utilizing this technology have already commenced. By utilizing this digital transmission technology, video signals for different scanning methods can be coded, multiplexed (i.e., placed on one common carrier wave) and then broadcast.
In contrast, in related art analog broadcast receivers, television receivers are able to receive transmissions from a plurality of analog broadcast systems. In analog broadcasting, however, different kinds of information cannot be multiplexed (or placed together on the same carrier wave) so that the received video signal itself must be analyzed to determine the scanning method. When receiving different video signals having a plurality of scanning systems in the above mentioned related art analog broadcasts, not only was a custom identification means required to analyze and process the received video signal itself, but in order to identify the video signal, video signal processing circuits had to be operated whose operation was not actually necessary.
In contrast, one important feature of digital broadcasting, however, is that a plurality of information such as audio, video and data can be multiplexed and sent as one transmission stream. Utilizing multiplexed data therefore means that various features can be provided.
In view of the above problems, it is therefore an object of this invention to provide a digital broadcast receiver for identifying video signal scanning methods utilizing different kinds of multiplexed information, and using such identification for selecting an appropriate scanning method for reproduction.
In order to achieve the above, this invention is directed to a digital broadcast receiver unit for receiving a digital multiplexed signal stream having multiplexed signals commonly encoded using a same encoding/decoding standard, the multiplexed signals including video signals corresponding to a plurality of different video signal formats, and isolating and reproducing at least one video signal, the unit including: a selector to select and extract one video signal from a received the digital multiplexed signal; a decoder to decode the video signal from the selector according to the encoding/decoding standard; a plurality of video processor sections, with respective video processor sections providing video processing according to a different video signal format of the plurality of different video signal formats; and a controller using information from the received the digital multiplexed signal to determine a video signal format of the video signal from the decoder, and selecting one video processor section of the video processor sections to perform video processing of the video signal according to a determined video signal format thereof. More particularly, the present invention determines the scanning method of the video signal of the selected program and then performs the appropriate processing based on the scanning method for the selected video signal.
The foregoing and a better understanding of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and claims when read in connection with the accompanying drawings, all forming a part of the disclosure hereof this invention. While the foregoing and following written and illustrated disclosure focuses on disclosing embodiments of the invention which are considered preferred embodiments, it should be clearly understood that the same is by way of illustration and example only and is not to be taken by way of limitation, the spirit and scope of the present invention being limited only by the terms of the appended claims.